8 Responses to “A Depressing Thought for the New Year”

Other than that, the ability of any person, at any time, to instantaneously share global messages, including video, has changed the structure of the control of information.

This kind of drastic change in the way information is disseminated is often part of major structural changes in societies.

The internet is a major change in the mode of information. Tech in general is continually changing the mode of production.

However, the thesis is what, exactly? For how long? How severe?

I have my doubts that you can isolate “the internet” as a “control” it in a way that leads to a definitive outcome in terms of authoritarian governance. Stability may have changed. Has it? Perhaps only in our minds because we see more.

Also, what about the control governance now has of information? The ability to analyze data to find a pattern. Such as a pattern of life, or a pattern in a business, or state.

With the new technology of the twenty-first century a “Fourth Wave of propaganda” is developing. It is a wave that has yet to be identified historically. The development of the World Wide Web and the ability of the common person to communicate instantaneously and globally with the technology at our fingertips is a new medium for propaganda.

But…

Such use of information works as propaganda for multiple audiences: enemy and potential ally. This kind of propaganda is done not only to invoke support for the cause, it is also meant to provoke retaliation.

To retaliate the modern state uses its broad access to electronic information and combines various sources to create electronic analysis to be used for targeting. When the state investigates an individual for terrorism, analysis is done on internet use, cell phone records, electronic banking use, borders crossing records, etc. It is relatively easy for the state to capture the life patterns of an individual who has an electronic history. With that information known associates can also be discovered, connections revealed, and these associates can as well become targets of investigation and action.

Specific internet user profiles bring propaganda and action into a new era. Large corporations, political parties and government have adapted to this new medium of communications. An individual can easily create war propaganda using the internet, but can also be targeted using that ease of use. The new medium lends itself to a drastic increase in governments’ ability to gather information on individuals and groups. A person who is targeted and uses a phone or logs online with frequency will be captured or killed in a short period of time.

These new nodes of twenty-first century communication have brought us into a “Fourth Wave of propaganda.” Like the advent of the printing press and later radio and film, these new methods of communication are certain to have historical significance. The technological development of instantaneous global communication being achieved by common means creates a new and nuanced balance to the concept of equity. The equity required to promote and thwart a message has been altered. What event or events become associated with the development of this new technology is uncertain, but in the past such advances have been largely associated with war and revolution.

Technology has also increased the ability of the United States and other nations to conduct preemptive war. The modern nation-state has advanced nodes of data manipulation and weapons systems. Nation-states can compute multiple algorithms to form detailed analysis of the vast amount of electronic data provided due to the common use of information sharing technology. This has to be considered when looking at propaganda. To a degree, technology drives propaganda and the actions associated with it.